Court Says Nintendo Infringed Wii Designs; Orders Company to Pay $10 Million Royalty
A jury has recently decided in favor of a Texas-based inventor that sued Nintendo for the infringement of the Wii patent. The court decision ordered Nintendo to pay the complainant up to $10 million worth of compensation.
About four years later, on Aug. 31, a Dallas jury reached a verdict that ultimately ordered Nintendo to pay the plaintiff, iLife, $10 million as "amount of reasonable royalty."
According to reports, Nintendo argued that iLife's granted patent did not have clear enough descriptions to say that Wii and Wii U product designs infringed on it.
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However, the Dallas jury that deliberated on the case disagreed with Nintendo and said the video game company was unable to prove that iLife's patents lacked "adequate written description" to dismiss claims of infringement.
In a statement to Glixel (via Rolling Stone), Nintendo expressed their disagreement on the verdict and confirmed it would file an appeal.
The company stated: "The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife's patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals."
iLife filed the lawsuit back in 2013 and claimed that Nintendo had infringed several inventions and patents they owned upon the production and selling of Wii and Wii U consoles and accessories, which include the Wii console, Wii Remote Controller, Wii MotionPlus Remote, Wii U console, Wii U GamePad controller and more.
One of the patents involved in the case was that of U.S. Pat. No. 6864796, which described the invention as "systems within a communication device for evaluating movement of a body and methods of operating the same."
The said patent was first filed by iLife in 1999 and was granted to them by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in March 2005.
